Case Study: Mountain Shop Finds Balance Between Paid and Unpaid Promotions
Soon after taking over control of the 34-year-old mountain shop Alpenglow Sports, in Tahoe City, California, Brendan Madigan got to work crafting a strategic marketing plan that included both online and offline initiatives and relied heavily on social media for generating awareness among customers in his target demographics…
Street Fight Daily: Google Simplifies SMB Tools, Handbook Raises $30M
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Streamlines Its Tools for Small Businesses (New York Times)… On-Demand Home Services Startup Handybook Raises $30M From Steve Case’s Revolution Growth (TechCrunch)… CBS to Sell CBS Outdoor Stake, Paving Way for Expansion at Outdoor Company (AdAge)…
The Commerce Graph: Some Thoughts on the Future of Physical Exchange
The “Commerce Graph” is a new framework we have developed to think about the future of physical exchange. The model offers an alternative to the dominant narrative about the commerce landscape that frames digital networks as an adversary of physical exchange — a force that will inevitably drive us to buy and sell nearly everything virtually…
Street Fight Daily: Amazon Plans Local Marketplace, RadioShack’s Losses Deepen
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Amazon Plans Local Services Marketplace This Year (Reuters)… RadioShack Draws on Credit Line as Losses Deepen (Wall Street Journal)… Google to Buy Skybox Imaging for $500 Million (New York Times)…
Placed Raises $10M to Help Mobile Advertisers Ditch Clicks
A hedge fund has led a $10 million series B investment in Placed, a location analytics firm that uses Nielsen-like panels to help advertisers measure the effectiveness of advertising in the physical world. The funding highlights the growing demand by stakeholders in the mobile marketing industry to move beyond the click-through-rate by measuring the performance of digital advertising offline…
Street Fight Daily: GoDaddy Files for IPO, Amex Partners With Uber
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… GoDaddy Files for IPO (Wall Street Journal)… Uber and Amex Partner on In-App Loyalty Program (Recode)… Head of PayPal to Join Facebook (New York Times)…
JiWire Rebrands as NinthDecimal to Focus on Data Business
JiWire has rebranded as NinthDecimal as it looks to compete in an increasingly crowded mobile advertising technology sector by highlighting its data business. The move underscores the importance of consumer data in the way advertisers buy audiences online, and subsequent decline of media as the currency of online advertising…
7 Analytics Tools to Track Local Campaigns
Gut feelings and instinct can only take business owners so far. To determine the actual value of local campaigns, marketers need access to raw data. Unfortunately, obtaining this information — and then using it to compare two or more hyperlocal platforms in a head-to-head setting — isn’t always as straightforward as it seems. Here are seven platforms that businesses can use to measure the effectiveness of their local campaigns…
Street Fight: Uber Raises $1.2B, Apple Acquires Local Search Engine
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Uber Gets an Uber-Valuation (Wall Street Journal)… Apple Acquires Spotsetter, A Social Search Engine For Places (TechCrunch)… Jim Brady Plans News Org in Philly Called Brother.ly (Poynter)…
Up Close and Personal: Ex-Patcher Tells How He Went Independent
Michael Dinan was senior regional editor for Patch in suburban Connecticut when he — along with hundreds of other editorial staffers — was terminated in January as part of Aol’s deal to sell most of the community news network to Hale Global. After the blow fell, he turned around and set up the independent site New Canaanite within days — and expanded it to a collaborative network in suburban Connecticut shortly thereafter…
LBMA Podcast: Chuck E. Cheese Meets Oculus Rift
Welcome to This Week in Location Based Marketing, a weekly video podcast from the Location Based Marketing Association. Top stories of the week include Metaio’s Thermal Touch, Beck’s playable poster, tipping street musicians with Bitcoin, JINS health glass — and Bubbly launches direct carrier billing…
Street Fight Daily: Pinterest Eyes Small Business, Mobile Search Shifts From Google
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Pinterest Takes on Google and Facebook With Self-Service Ads (Wall Street Journal)… Study: Mobile Search Is Shifting From Google to Mobile Apps Like Yelp (AdAge)… P&G, Pepsi Try Out Foursquare’s New App, Swarm (AdAge)…
3 Models That VCs Are Buying in Local Tech
Venture investment continues to pour into local tech, but tastes are changing. During a panel at Street Fight Summit West on Tuesday, Jared Fliesler (General Partner, Matrix Partners), Jim Scheinman (Founder, Maven Ventures) and Raj Kapoor (CEO, Fitmob) spoke about where the hyperlocal industry is heading and where they expect the next billion-dollar local startup idea to come from…
Caterina Fake: The ‘Finding a Restaurant in This Town’ Problem Has Been Solved
During a fireside chat at Street Fight Summit West on Tuesday, the co-founder of Flickr told Jeff Bercovici that the restaurant discovery problem — a hobby horse of local tech of the past few years — has effectively been solved. Earlier this year, Fake released her newest venture to the world in Findery, a service that allows users to share content, or “notes” about places across the world…
Tinder and Grindr Share Their Secret (Local) Sauce
During a panel at Street Fight Summit West on Tuesday, Local SEO Guide proprietor Andrew Shotland spoke with Tinder co-founder Jonathan Badeen and Grindr’s global head of sales, Steve Levin, about what’s working for the mobile personals industry and what other hyperlocal vendors can learn from their successes…
Street Fight Daily: Yext Raises $50M, Facebook Courts Small Business
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Yext Raises $50 Million to Build Local-Business Directory (Wall Street Journal)
… Facebook Courts Small Business: ‘We Don’t Want to Take a Ton of Money’ (AdAge)… What Apple’s Fingerprint ID Changes Mean for Its Big Mobile Payments Plans (Recode)…
How Brands Like Taco Bell Are Buying Into Local
As director of media at Digitas, the digital agency of record for Taco Bell, Eric Perko was the mind behind the fast food restaurant’s massive breakfast menu launch earlier this year. Perko spoke with Silk.co’s Alex Salkver at Street Fight Summit West on Tuesday about his agency’s role in developing Taco Bell’s breakfast campaign and where he think digital marketing is headed.
Mobile’s Increasingly Strong Influence in Consumer Purchase Decisions
The third annual installment of the xAd/Telmetrics Mobile Path-to-Purchase study shows that mobile is a powerful force throughout the consumer purchase cycle. Consumers are spending more research time on their mobile devices than on their PCs, and more than one-third of mobile users use their devices exclusively to research purchases…